Monday, April 26, 2010

The ability/calling/passion of diagnosing music is a blessing and a curse. For any musician, the ability to assess, analyze and apply components of other music is critical to success and growth. However, it does tend to rob you of some joy you might otherwise get if you were just listening for pure enjoyment.

Worship leaders especially need to practice this diagnosing. Why worship leaders specifically? Think about it...worship leading is the one musical form where the whole time you're TRYING to get people to sing along with you. Sure, a rock concert wants you singing the choruses out, but they're not that concerned with making sure you know every lyric to every song so you can sing just as long as loud as they are. Worship leaders need to know what musical forms do and how they do it.

The fortunate thing is that once you start, it's a pretty easy thing to keep up. Your ears get trained on listening to whole songs rather than just the lead vocal and drum part and your mind gets more comfortable converting specific tones and rhythms and textures into more generalized knowledge about the art of music.

I've a had a few music diagnosis thoughts over the past couple of weeks and I wanted to see what you thought.

ROBBIE SEAY BANDSome of you will remember that I recently posted how much I'm enjoying RSB's new project, Miracle. It's a great record that seems to capture the band at what they do best. The songs shine and the overall theme of the record is well-planned. There are some similarities between this new project and Robbie's previous record, Give Yourself Away, which makes 'music diagnosis' a little easier. My primary take away from these records is that Robbie and the band don't use piano in the traditional sense. You won't hear a piano playing through these songs. But you will hear piano.

Robbie Seay Band utilizes the piano as bells. Song after song feature this simple, evenly spaced, bell-like parts on piano. (Think the bridge of "Song of Hope" from Give Yourself Away. There's an obvious keyboard 'bell part' in that bridge.) This seems to broaden the song..to give an orchestral dynamic without really adding a lot of extra instrumentation. Writing riffs like this has to be a challenge, but when done well, these bell-like sections and give parts of a song something extra to cut through the noise.

Related Note: Coldplay also uses these bell tones, too, although they are typically a part of an established piano track. Same principle, but different effect due to Coldplay's more piano-centric sound compared to RSB guitar-focused pop/rock.

JOHN MAYERI think Battle Studies is one of the coolest, bravest records in pop music this year. One thing that has consistently set Mayer apart from other hipster crooners (Mraz, Degraw, etc) is his no-fear approach to B-sections.

I don't know if 'B-sections' is the right phrase, but I'll give you an example. Here are the lyrics to Mayer's "War of My Life."

VERSE 1 (A)Come out angels, come out ghostsCome out darkness, bring everyone you knowI'm not running, I'm not scaredI am waiting and well prepared

CHORUS (C)I'm in the war of my lifeAt the door of my lifeOut of Time and there's no where to run away

VERSE 2 (A)I've got a hammer and a heart of glassI got to know right now which walls to smashI got a pocket, got no pills, if fear hasn't killed me yetThen nothing will

EXTRA (B)All the suffering, and all the painNever left a name

CHORUS (C)I'm in the war of my lifeAt the door of my lifeOut of time and there's nowhere to run

I'm in the war of my lifeAt the core of my lifeI've got no choice but to fight til it's done

EXTRA (B)No more sufferingNo more painNever again

CHORUS (C)I'm in the war of my lifeAt the door of my lifeOut of time and there's no where to run

I'm in the war of my lifeI'm at the core of my lifeGot no choice but to fight til it's doneSo Fight on, fight on everyone, so fight onGot no choice but to fight til it's done

I'm in the war of my lifeI'm at the core of my lifeI've got no choice but to fight til it's done

I realize it's hard to notice without a track playing, but notice the order. (I've used a modified rhyme-scheme like pattern to show this.) Instead of flowing right from V2-CHORUS like he did in the first pass, he jumps to this B-section. It's a nice little pre-chorus part. Later in the tune we hear it again in what most songwriters would call the "bridge."

Mayer has used this technique in many songs. "Why Georgia" has numerous sections that appear at random times. This approach defies pop-music logic and I think it's part of what has helped John Mayer to succeed. He may risk being too random but his dynamic sensibilities make sure those creative excursions support the climb of the songs and make them stand out without being too unpredictable.Related note: One artist who does this even better than Mayer is David Crowder. Crowder's music is an amazing example of B-sections and crafting songs in modes more linear than circular.

That's probably enough for one post. We'll continue to talk about this over the next few weeks.

If you're a musician, you no doubt have some similar thoughts and theories about music. Leave a comment below with some of you musical diagnosis. Tell me something you've learned from listening to other artists!